BATON ROUGE- The state has more than $500 million in unclaimed property waiting for its rightful owner.

The state treasury collects the money from businesses who can't find the owner.

"Some of this gets lost and if a business can't find you and has your money it can't just keep the money, it's got to turn it over to [the] state treasurer under our unclaimed property laws and it's my job to get it back to folks," said State Treasurer John Kennedy.

The treasury offers a service on their website to search for unclaimed funds. Since Kennedy began his stint as treasurer, the department has doled out more than $250 million in unclaimed property, with the largest payout being more than $1 million to a single person.